


Bare

by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song)



Category: Donald Strachey Mysteries (Movies)
Genre: Challenge Response, Character Study, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackbird_Song/pseuds/Blackbird%20Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donald Strachey doesn't need this. Only it's not like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bare

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/tim_don_a_thon/profile)[**tim_don_a_thon**](http://community.livejournal.com/tim_don_a_thon/) challenge, this is my first attempt at anything in the Strachey Mysteries universe. I have not read the books, but have seen all the movies. I have fabricated by implication the time that they got together, and apologize if I have it wrong. Many thanks to my husband for the beta.

He was in a mood. It wasn't a bad mood. It wasn't a mood about anything. He wasn't craving anything or feeling bored out of his skull, which was always a nice change and usually came in the bedroom with Timmy. Actually, it went along with Timmy even when they weren't having sex of any kind. Timmy could be hot, sweet, panicky, sultry, vulnerable, cranky, supportive, huffy, allergic, furious, gleeful, nit-picky, abnormally fastidious with his clothes yet hideously careless with his own life, and downright annoying as hell, but he was never boring. Ever. Not in any of the years they'd been together, good or bad.

So perhaps that was why, on this particular night, Donald Strachey didn't have to be dragged. He didn't have to use it as a bribe. He didn't even have to be coaxed or teased. On this night, he was actually in the _mood_ to dance with the one man who'd managed to keep his attention every single Christmas, New Year, Martin Luther King Day (which he only observed because of Timmy) Valentine's Day (which he had always hated with a passion until Timmy had come along and made him sort of not hate it), St. Patrick's Day, Easter (great Easter egg hunts that had nothing, whatsoever, to do with actual eggs), Memorial Day (still a hard one that nearly always ended in tears that he always tried to hide and Timmy always found and held him through), Fourth of July, Labor Day, Halloween (Timmy's chocolate martinis were the very best candy in the world, though they didn't qualify as actual _drinks_), Veteran's Day (for which he used to pour himself into a bottle and now he poured himself into Timmy) and Thanksgiving for ten years. Ten long, hard, incredible years that he would change if he could, but not if it meant giving up a single second with Timothy Callahan.

He didn't crave this. He didn't crave the feel of his partner's body against his, didn't need the sensation of long, gentle, beautiful fingers forming that careful cradle for the back of his head, didn't ache for that necessary breath exhaled against the base of his neck and curling around to tease his nostrils. He didn't require that tingle of sensation as Timmy's lips found his own and opened him and shared that necessary breath.

His heart didn't beat any faster when he saw Timmy naked, covered from head to toe in that gorgeous, flawless skin with the perfect little mole dotted here and there. Especially _there_. He never really obsessed on the weight of Timmy's gorgeous cock against his thigh, nuzzling his own ravenously interested dick, in his mouth, against his belly, in his hand, inside his body.

He never particularly thought about the gleam of sex sweat as it limned Timmy's Greek-god form, or the way it plastered down the chest hair he loved to comb with his fingers when he awoke in the morning. He definitely didn't forsake all other things in life to eat, drink, breathe, sink and weld himself into Timmy, body and soul. Not at all. Don Strachey never did that sort of thing. Not more than every chance he could get, anyway.

And he never, ever whimpered into Timmy's mouth except as a ploy for more, now, harder, faster, _ohmigodthere!_ Not like he was doing now. And he never felt, while savoring those full, perfect, _soft_ lips, that all he wanted to do was crawl inside Timmy and let Timmy crawl inside him and stay like that forever and ever and ever, and breathe through each other and—

This was where he was supposed to want to pull away. This was supposed to be the place where feelings stopped working their voodoo on him and he started being his cynical self again. This was where he came back to himself and kept the relationship healthy.

Only this night, this New Year's Eve, as they celebrated a Christmas delayed by case and crisis and chaos until the cusp of a new decade – though Timmy would always point out that the decade didn't actually start until the next year, at which point Don would point out that he was talking about their own personal decade together, which Tim really couldn't argue – this night, that feeling didn't go away. Don shuddered.

And of course he didn't need the comfort of Timmy's arms as they pulled him in and soothed him, nor did he in any way take a slightly sharper breath at the feel of Timmy's lips kissing away the tiniest touch of moisture below his left eye.

But perhaps he did need to feel Timothy's corresponding shudder, and the way Tim's cheek pressed against his own, breath hitching against his left ear. Because then he could kiss. He could comfort. He could hold and cherish and protect almost as well as Tim did that for him. And then he could come back to himself without the slightest regret. Without the slightest loss or death of soul.

And he could absolutely never, under any circumstances, ever lose himself in Timmy Callahan all over again. Not even as they sank down onto the rug lit only by the fire, the candles and the Christmas tree, and stripped each other slowly bare.


End file.
